


'Ouija Board Gone Wrong: What Happened At The Lake'

by ZombieMerlin



Series: Danny the ViewTuber [8]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Ouija Board, Youtube AU, Youtuber AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-24
Updated: 2020-03-24
Packaged: 2021-02-23 00:03:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23302534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZombieMerlin/pseuds/ZombieMerlin
Summary: Maybe he's just psyching himself out, but Tucker genuinely has a Really Bad Feeling right now.He supposes he could have decided to say no when Danny invited him and Sam to be a part of this video. He'd honestly thought about it, but then Danny offered to let him be the cameraman and well... Tucker couldn't say no to the opportunity to get his hands on that sweet ProCam. What's a little bit of fear when the trade-off is holding a wonderful beauty of human technological innovation? If he has to risk summoning some weird demon just to be able to hold this baby, well, then, so be it.--In which Danny convinces Sam and Tucker to mess around with a Ouija board for one of his ViewTube videos. It's pretty uneventful at first, but then it isn't.The events of this fic are referenced in Chapters 7 and 10 of "A Fenton Wrapped in a Mystery". This can be read as a standalone.
Series: Danny the ViewTuber [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1413250
Comments: 64
Kudos: 581





	'Ouija Board Gone Wrong: What Happened At The Lake'

**Author's Note:**

> The events of this fic are referenced in Chapters 7 and 10 of "A Fenton Wrapped in a Mystery". You don't necessarily have to read that to understand this fic though. The only background you need is that Danny is a ViewTuber (YouTuber).

"So... how long do we have to wait?" Tucker asks, pointing the camera around them and then back at the Ouija board sitting in the middle of their circle. The dried leaves under the board crackle as he shifts the position of his fingers on the planchette. 

"I dunno," Danny says. "The instructions don't say." 

"The instructions also don't bother to tell you how bad of an idea this is, so maybe they're not exactly trustworthy," Sam says. Tucker tilts the camera up to point at her expression. She seems a bit tense, her arms rigid even as she holds her fingertips on the little planchette. 

"Oooh, are you _scared?"_ Tucker asks. She fixes an unimpressed glare in his direction. A lesser man would be cowed, but Tucker had long ago lost his self-preservation instincts in relation to women.

"What is it you call it? It's healthy skepticism."

"Sure, but we all know that's what Tucker says when he's actually scared out of his mind," Danny adds with a grin.

"Hey!" Tucker says. They're right, but that doesn't mean he wants to hear it. "Shut up. Aren't we supposed to be quiet?"

They all fall silent. Despite the joke at Tucker's expense, Sam doesn't seem any more relaxed. Part of him feels bad because she looks genuinely worried, but it's not often that Sam is the one concerned about whatever situations Danny drags the two of them into. Bored and snarky? Yes. Pseudo-cynical about Danny's intelligence? Yes. But never this dread, like she's afraid something's about to go horribly wrong. Sam's got her goth thing and Danny has his "I deal with death every day" thing, leaving Tucker defenseless against the normal human concept of fear. 

...that's probably an exaggeration. Whatever.

Sam clearly isn't _that_ worried since she's right alongside them with her hands on the planchette. It can't be that bad. And yet, Tucker can't ignore the sneaking question in the back of his mind... what if she's right? What if they're really messing with something they shouldn't?

"Oh! Tucker, dude, you don't have both hands on the thing," Danny says. 

"Well, yeah. I have to hold the camera," Tucker says. 

"We should probably _all_ be touching it with both hands, though," Danny argues.

"Or not," Sam adds. Her comment is ignored.

"Fine," Tucker grumbles. He makes a little pillow of dry leaves to set the camera on to protect it from the light covering of snow on the ground. He gingerly puts it down and turns it to face them. Hands free, he takes off his other glove and puts both sets of bare fingertips on the piece of wood.

A wave of cold goes down his spine as his hands make contact. That probably does not bode well. 

Sam once came to Danny and Tucker with a theory. The theory was that there's another type of ghost, different than the ghosts that frequent Amity Park. These are the ghosts that horror movies are written about, she'd said, the ones who are impersonally malicious and wish only for prey and harm. 

Tucker hadn't taken her seriously at the time and made some smart comment about her use of the phrase "impersonally malicious." Danny agreed, though he was a little nicer about it. Tucker honestly thought it was a load of crap. TV show and movie writers have a habit of taking totally innocuous things and making them creepy, whether it's beloved children's comics or fun-time pizzerias or whatever. The same could probably be said about ghosts. 

But now? As he, Danny, and Sam stare at the Ouija board in the middle of their circle, Sam's "different ghost" theory is all he can think about. What if he just completed some sort of missing link? What if this _does_ summon something? Something _bad?_ Movies and stuff usually have some degree of truth to them, right? And maybe he's just psyching himself out, but Tucker genuinely has a Really Bad Feeling right now. 

He supposes he could have decided to say no when Danny invited him and Sam to be a part of this video. He'd honestly thought about it, but then Danny offered to let him be the cameraman and well... Tucker _couldn't_ say no to the opportunity to get his hands on that sweet ProCam. What's a little bit of fear when the trade-off is holding a wonderful beauty of human technological innovation? If he has to risk summoning some weird demon just to be able to hold this baby, well, then, so be it.

After another ten minutes of waiting in silence with nothing but a quiet breeze to accompany them, Tucker looks up at Danny. 

"Maybe this is a bust," he hedges. 

Danny makes a disappointed sound and leans back from the planchette, bracing his weight on his hands. "Yeah, you're probably right." 

Tucker tries not to look too excited as he, too, retracts his hands from the planchette and dives towards Baby— er, the ProCam. He turns the little camera this way and that, checking for insects or damage. He flicks off a small bug, but otherwise, it's fine. It has a few dings and scratches because Danny is a heathen that doesn't know how to treat his fine hardware like the royalty it is, but it doesn't have any new blemishes since Tucker last touched it. Satisfied, he moves it up to film Danny again. 

"It's not the end of the world, dude," Tucker says. "You do have those other runs that you haven't posted yet—"

Tucker stops. 

Something behind Danny just disappeared offscreen. 

No, no, no, no, no, _no._ Heart in his throat, he switches focus from the screen to the space over Danny's shoulder. 

Oh. It's just a tree. Of course it is. He can't believe he's so jumpy. He hasn't realized how tense he's gotten until he relaxes, shoulders slumping as he breathes out a relieved exhale. 

"What just happened?" Danny asks, looking behind him. He's in Alert Mode now, sitting up straight and looking like he's completely prepared to spring into action. He's obviously seconds from transforming. Tucker shakes his head.

"Nothing. I thought I saw something. It was just a tree." 

Danny says nothing in response, gaze unwavering from the direction Tucker had been looking. Tucker hates when he does the staring thing, it's so _creepy._ Danny likes to joke that ghosts had to have rubbed off on him somehow, and that's probably true, but like... jeez. 

Danny finally shrugs and relaxes. "It was probably nothing. I'd know if there was someone lurking around, so we're fine." 

Tucker is momentarily comforted. Then he remembers Kelton hadn't triggered Danny's Ghost Sense.

Suddenly uneasy, he turns the camera to Sam. 

"Hey, Sam?" he asks. 

Sam had stood up at one point. When, Tucker has no idea. Kinda weird, considering the snow and leaf-covered ground should theoretically have made a noise or something. She's looking off into the distance, in the same direction Tucker and Danny had been. 

"Sam...?" Tucker asks again, moving closer to her. When was the last time she actually spoke? He remembers the chill he'd felt after touching the planchette with both hands. She hadn't said anything after that. 

Uh-oh. 

"Sam?" Danny tries. 

"Did you guys hear that?" she asks quietly. 

Danny and Tucker exchange glances, before looking back at Sam. 

"Hear what?" Tucker asks. He kind of doesn't want to know the answer. 

She cocks her head to the side slightly and doesn't respond. 

Sam always insists that her brand of creepy is "punk goth," which is, in her words, "completely different than Danny's ghost thing." She doesn't do creepy things, she just Is. That. It exudes off of her. The freaky head-tilt is not on-brand. 

Tucker is rightly terrified. 

Sam shudders. She takes a step away, and then another. Anxiety skitters back into Tucker's chest and perches somewhere in his ribs. 

"Sam," Danny says, stepping forward to put a hand on her shoulder. She moves away from his touch. She hasn't looked at him, there's no way she could have seen the hand coming. 

"I'm... I think..." Her voice sounds far away, like she's lost in her head. She finally looks back at Danny and Tucker. "I think someone's in trouble." 

"Someone's in trouble?" Danny asks, hands up and voice steady like he's talking to a frightened animal. He moves around her to stand in her line of sight. Klaxon sirens go off in Tucker's head in warning, but he still moves to their side to keep filming.

"I just have this _feeling,"_ Sam says. She takes two steps to the side, away from Danny, to move behind him. Quieter, she adds, "She's so sad." 

"Sam, please don't be _that_ horror movie cliche," Tucker whines. This is looking more and more like it'll play out into a Very Bad Situation, and he's not looking forward to it. 

"Who are you talking about, Sam?" Danny says patiently after a brief glare at Tucker. He has that _"I need to figure out what is going on before I can do hero stuff"_ tone, and Tucker groans. 

Why can't they _ever_ just have a normal day? Well, as normal as you can get when your half-ghost superhero best friend decides to drag you off into the woods with a Ouija board and a mission to talk to ghosts despite dealing with them every day. They really should get a normal hobby, like skateboarding or drugs or something. 

Sam turns to Danny and blinks. "What?" 

"You... Sam, you're kinda freaking me out," Danny says. He steps back to make direct eye contact with her again. "You just said someone is sad, that someone's in trouble. Who is it?" 

Sam shakes her head. "I don't..." 

Tucker makes a frustrated sound. He's never felt this combination of abject fear and utter weariness before, but the weariness wins out.

"Hey, ghost or whatever that's trying to possess Sam. Can you quit it with the horror-movie shenanigans and get to the part where you scare us all half to death and possibly try to kill us? I still kind of have math homework to do." 

Sam takes off running. 

Danny facepalms, then fixes a glare on Tucker. 

Tucker shrugs. "Might as well get it over with, right?" 

They follow after Sam. It isn't hard— winter has stripped most of the trees bare of their leaves, and the snow contrasts sharply with anything on it. Even though Sam got a head start, it's easy to spot her moving between the trees. 

He feels the Thing again, the presence that had initially alerted him to something being wrong. It lurks in the corner of his vision. He hadn't just spooked at a tree earlier. Of course there's nothing there when he turns to look because that's not how this kinda thing works, but something is definitely following them. Or maybe leading them? Tucker isn't sure. It seems like it's getting closer each time, and he'd be lying if he said he wasn't freaked the hell out. 

Tucker starts to turn his head for the fourth time in a row when—

Without turning towards him, Sam yells, "Don't look at her! She's shy." 

Yes. Of course. Alright. No big deal. Sorry to whatever creepy presence is out there. The shyness was not common knowledge. 

"This doesn't make sense. I would _know_ if she's possessed," Danny grumbles. The hidden implication is obviously of his ghost sense, cause apparently he's conveniently still aware that the camera is rolling. 

"I mean... I keep seeing a Thing... with a capital 'T'... out of the corner of my eyes.... and it disappears when I try to look at it directly," Tucker huffs between breaths. He's totally salty that neither Danny nor Sam seem winded. "Sam just said... 'she's shy'... Sounds like ... some sorta possession..."

"Yeah, but _how,_ though?" 

Tucker can't answer, partially because he doesn't know the answer but mostly because he's wheezing. 

Sam stops running about forty feet ahead of them. She stares out at some sort of large clearing. When they catch up, Tucker leans against a nearby tree to suck in huge gulps of air. He hates this. So much. Maybe he should work out. 

Ha. 

Danny seems to have no such trouble, of course, and Tucker lifts the camera up to record again as he approaches Sam. She starts to walk off, and Danny is quick to grab her arm. 

"Sam, wait—"

 _"NO!"_ Sam roars in a voice that isn't hers. Her face is twisted in a snarl, and she rips her hand out of Danny's grip. _"THERE'S NO TIME. TROUBLE."_

"I think _you're_ the trouble," Danny says, clearly not talking to Sam anymore. He locks a hand around her forearm again. "Now, if you could please get out of my friend right now so we can have a civil conversation, that would be great." 

Tucker stiffens. The Thing is just out of his sight again. He can sense it, feet away from his right. He swallows but doesn't turn his head. He holds up the camera, still dutifully recording, and slowly turns it towards the Thing. Without moving his face, he directs his eyes down towards the screen. On the far right, something that looks like a flash of rags or a lock of hair briefly billows outward, before disappearing off-screen. What if...?

He stops trying to film it. 

He trains the camera back on Danny. 

"Danny." 

"Yeah?" 

"Stop talking." 

Danny bristles. Sam still struggles against his grip, clawing at his fingers and hissing. "What? Dude, I'm just trying to figure out what's going on!" 

" _Danny._ "

Something in Tucker's tone must tip Danny off because he falls silent. 

The presence moves closer. Tucker closes his eyes. 

This Thing, whatever it is. It's trying to warn them. He's spent so much time afraid and annoyed that he hadn't been paying attention. Now? Maybe they should actually listen. 

He _feels_ the presence get closer to him. He tenses, but then it passes behind him and moves towards his right. After a moment, he turns after it. 

What he mistook for a large clearing is actually an enormous body of water. Tucker abruptly realizes they're standing by a frozen Lake Eerie. There's no figure on the lake because of course there isn't, but there _is_ an oddly bright green object on the ice in the direction that Tucker had felt the Thing disappear. The object is too brightly colored to be anything natural in the dull browns and grays of winter in the woods. 

"Tucker?" Danny prompts. Sam has fallen silent, and a quick glance at her shows her staring back at him with unnatural intensity.

He turns back to the ice and squints, taking a step closer while being careful not to put his foot on the wobbly surface of the frozen lake. What the heck is that? He can't make it out. He lifts the camera to get a better look and zooms in. It's... a stuffed animal? And next to it is a dark spot in the ice. Huh. Wait—

"There's a hole in the ice," he breathes to himself. Holy crap. Louder, with more urgency, "Danny, there's a hole in the ice, there's a stuffed animal over there next to a _hole in the ice_ —"

"Cut the camera!" Danny says, right before he takes off running across the ice because that's a _great_ idea. The presence, which had decided to reappear to Tucker's left while he was looking at the lake, finally disappears. 

Of course it had been warning them. Sam-not-Sam had literally started off saying there was someone in trouble. They were stupid to have not been listening. They would have been first to die in a horror movie. Ugh. 

On his other side, Sam blinks and shakes her head. She pulls her gloves out of her pocket and tugs them back on. Tucker sighs as he realizes he left his gloves back with the Ouija board. 

"I... wow. That was... weird." 

"Yep. So, you're Sam now?" 

"Yeah? I think so. I don't feel wrong anymore." 

"Great. Could you like, feel it in your head?" 

"Yeah. She was... really sad. And she didn't want anyone else to die. So I kinda let her take the wheel." 

"Who even is 'she'? Was she a ghost?"

"I don't really know. I'm not sure she was. But, look, can we talk about this later?"

"Oh. Right, yeah, we should probably get over there." 

The two of them take off, running along the side of the lake and towards the opposite shore. Tucker tires quickly. Sam does, too, at least, which makes him feel a little better. Finally reaching the hole, Danny leaps into the air, transforms, and dives through the ice intangibly. 

Sam and Tucker _finally_ get to the part of the shoreline closest to the hole in the ice. Tucker isn't dumb enough to just run out onto the ice, and Danny already seems to be taking care of that situation, anyways. 

It's been almost a full minute. Danny hasn't come out of the ice. 

"Didn't he tell you to stop filming?" Sam asks. 

"Oh yeah," Tucker says as he continues filming. 

"Tucker." 

"I can delete it later," he says. He just wants to hold on to Baby a little while longer. He doesn't know if he'll get the chance to again. Sam doesn't have to know that, though. 

Sam rolls her eyes and pulls out her phone. "I'm calling 911."

"Wait, what? Why? Danny's faster, isn't he?" 

"I'm covering his tracks," Sam says with a lot of attitude for someone who was possessed by a still unknown Thing about two minutes ago. "Phantom's reaction to this would be to get her out of the water. _Fenton's_ reaction should be to get help." 

Oh. Okay, fair. 

Tucker has been in dangerous situations before. He's been in more dangerous situations than most people have in a lifetime, but... something about seeing Danny phase the too-still little figure in a purple coat out of the water is more terrifying than anything he's ever experienced. He stumbles a few steps back as Danny flies to the shoreline. 

The next half hour passes in a haze of panic and uncertainty. 

Danny somehow manages to revive the little girl despite not doing anything resembling CPR, and he wraps her in his own jacket before taking off in the direction of Amity Regional. 

The police arrive at the lake and ask a whole bunch of questions, especially at the sight of the sopping wet purple coat left on the leaves. 

Tucker and Sam have to cover for Danny's absence until he gets back from the hospital. 

It all ends with the three of them sitting together in the back of a squad car. Not because they had done anything wrong but because Danny forgot that normal people are cold without a jacket at this time of year, and the officer was afraid he had frostbite or something because he could barely feel the frigid temperature. 

None of them say anything for a long moment. Eventually, Danny gently takes the camera from Tucker. He turns it on and starts talking, but Tucker isn't paying attention. 

He's staring out the window at the stuffed dinosaur on the ice. 

Danny eventually stops talking and heaves out a sigh. Tucker tunes in just in time to hear Danny say, 

"Well. That went well."

Tucker turns to glare. Sam punches Danny in the arm, and he laughs. It's not really a "funny haha" laugh so much as it was an "if I don't laugh I'm gonna cry" kinda laugh. It's stupid and not remotely funny, but the tension in the car dissipates slightly. The weird and now familiar flicker appears in the corner of his eye, and Tucker instinctively glances out the window again. 

He sees the dark brown silhouette of the figure for a split second this time. He almost mistakes it for a tree again.

It's waving at him. 

It has too many limbs, and what appears to be long rags undulate in the air despite there being no wind. 

Tucker waves back anyway. 

When he blinks, it's gone. 

Sam seems wrong about the "alternate ghost" theory, at least, but the Thing was still pretty freaky. They've lucked out so far with Kelton and whatever this was, but... what happens when their luck runs out? 

Oh, well. That's a problem for future Danny. 

Tucker could claim that he's never going to say yes to being in a video ever again, but honestly? The camera _is_ pretty sweet. 

**Author's Note:**

> me: I should really use this break to write my buffer chapters for that Lancer fic  
> me: ...  
> Tuesday: *happens*  
> me: *craving internet validation* _POST!!!_
> 
>  **Edit 6/15/2020:** Made some minor grammatical fixes.


End file.
